Carlos Begay: What it your name?
Jenny Stroup: Virginia Stroup, but known in college as Jenny Martin
Carlos Begay: What degree did you receive, in what year, and from what department?
Jenny Stroup: College of Education, Bachelor of Science in secondary education, 1962
Carlos Begay: What role have you had in education following graduation? What positions have you held in education?
Jenny Stroup: I taught for a year in Tempe High District, and coach, physical education English in my major and minor, and my husband was in the Air Guard and we went to Georgia for a year while he went to pilot training and I substituted taught there which was quite an eye opener. Going from Arizona to Georgia and at that time, and it was deep south, came back and taught another year at Tempe High. And then my husband went with the air line and we started moving around the country and we had our family. So I didn’t teach after that. I’ve used my education as a great deal as a volunteer. And I’ve been a volunteer for over 35 years with the Scottsdale boys and girls club. And I don’t directly work with the kids too often, I work with the auxiliary and we are a support group. We’re run a Thrift shop as a fundraising group armed for the programming for the kids. I used it as a girl scout leader, I used it as a little league mom, and a lot of things that my educational background really did help me do more for my family I think all the way through.
Carlos Begay: How would you describe the student population in terms of age, gender, race, economic status?
Jenny Stroup: We had a lot of returning veterans coming in at that point. It was an interesting time, I don’t know why they came to flagstaff, I guess they wanted something different too. I do remember that in my freshman class it was a small school. I came to NAU, Arizona State College at that time. Specifically to go to a small school and to be in a change of climate. My freshman class was almost as large as the student body had been the year before which was around four hundred and something students. So by the time I graduated, four years later it was the student body was around four thousand. So it grew rapidly and yet it was very diversified. We had foreign students, we had students from all over the country. I remember one of the student crying the day Hawaii became a state. She was from Hawaii and she wanted Hawaii to stay special, not be just another state. But as far as gender I think it was pretty evenly divided, and the ages, we had quite a few married students and again I think that was probably an aftermath of the veterans coming in, they were a little older.
Carlos Begay: Why did you choose to go to ASC/NAU? How did ASC/NAU influence your decision to go into education?
Jenny Stroup: I guess as I said earlier, I wanted to go to a smaller school. I went to west Phoenix High School in Phoenix. My graduating class was almost seven hundred students. In my other there were four thousand students in the student body so just the school in itself was big, bigger then when I started here. Education had been something that I guess I’d been instilled with all my life. As a child I wanted to be a…I can remember…in the eighth grade you’d take all these aptitude tests and that I remember, a professor, a teacher who was eight grade home room and English teacher, she said you know, its too bad that you are a girl because engineering would be the choice the field that you should really go into but you can be a teacher. That’s okay and that was kind of an attitude that predominant my age group gals could be teachers, nurses, or secretaries. And I never thought about it any differently and up to this day I love mechanical things and all that but I love teaching. And it’s just that I worked my way through college as a summer camp counselor and even in High School I worked at a child care nursery and the YWCA and things like this. I liked being with young people and just been always focused that direction I guess.
Carlos Begay: How did you pay for college and did you work during the time that you were a student?
Jenny Stroup: Yes, I worked, yes. I had scholarships, my parents helped me a great deal. My last year, I could not work while I was student teaching so I had one of the government educational loans that every year you taught you pay less back type program, I did that. I had a couple jobs off campus, holiday jobs and I worked the snowbowl every winter just because I loved skiing and also one of my sorority sisters grandmother own it so it was nice to be able to work within an environment of friends. Had a few scholarships that helped along the way, learned later that there were a lot more that I could apply for but we weren’t really sophisticated during that time.
Carlos Begay: What was your experience with housing during this time? Were you in a dormitory or off campus? What was dorm life like?
Jenny Stroup: I lived in the dorm the whole time. My first year of course was in what we called north quad north hall, it was strictly a freshman woman’s dorm, and then I lived there first semester as a sophomore as a counselor, as a spur. I would counsel the freshmen and then my roommate left so I moved over to the sorority dorm and lived in the sorority dorms. We didn’t have separate building, it was just floors within the women dorms for the next three years.
Carlos Begay: What campus traditions were memorable to you during this time?
Jenny Stroup: I guess homecoming was always a big thing for us. Everybody worked so hard, everybody on campus and in town was involved in the homecoming parade and all the activities leading up to it. The whole week of activity, the chain gang was leading it, it was a lot of good memories that way. A lot of memories of just, I guess, activities and fun and of course being in a sorority, that’s where I lived and had a closer relationship with those gals. The fun thing we did and the friendliness, I think probably as a tradition, NAU was just known as a friendly campus. Whether it was a professor or a counselor or the college nurse, whatever it might be. You knew everybody and everybody was very very friendly, that way.
Carlos Begay: What Extra Curricular activities did you take part in (sports, drama, government, newspaper, etc) and what effect did they have on your college experience?
Jenny Stroup: WAA, woman’s athletic association which was woman’s intramural program basically. We didn’t have any woman’s varsity sports or organized sports that way at all. I did that as my interest and then all my sorority activities I was supervised and student government, as a senator for a couple of years and treasure of the woman’s associated students organization. Involved in all of it and mostly the sports came through my major and its been working that way.
Carlos Begay: What teachers, classes, or educational experiences did you have that were the most memorable?
Jenny Stroup: I had a lot of good ones. Probably one of the things that I had my counselor and advisor in the physical education department was Helen Oswald, Dr. Oswald who later became head of the physical education department of the university, or athletic director I guess it was titled in. Very open, you could discuss anything and I can remember taking graduate level classes my senior year from Dr. Cheska who was head of the woman’s physical education program at that time. And being able to discuss things, it was very very open and having a graduate class with 10 or 12 students in it made it a very interesting experience and having student that were married students, returning to the workforce students, plus undergraduates like myself. And the first day you think, here I am, the undergraduate, I don’t stand a chance with these grad students and she never let that happen. Our opinion was a valuable as anyone’s else and I thought that was all the way through school, the fact that I could always question or get extra help or talk with my professors. I was never making an appointment to see a student assistant. It was always directly with a professor.
Carlos Begay: What was your clearest and most memorable experience of your college years?
Jenny Stroup: It’s really tough to say, I probably have to say that it was being tapped for, we called it honor board at the time now it went national mortar board, that’s a very clear memory to me, a very emotional time, very exciting time to see your efforts of three years pay off. I had a lot of good very memorable experiences and they all revolved around friends, people.
Carlos Begay: Considering your total college experience, what difference did ASC/NAU make in your professional life?
Jenny Stroup: I think we were more people oriented. When I went to teach, of course at Tempe High, we had so many students and there were new teachers there and they were out of ASU, which was huge. And they all commented about so many of the things and background that I had experienced that they didn’t have. They certainly had the academic part but the one on one type relationship with professors or student teaching in a smaller situation, the extra curricular things that we did through our classes such as square dancing with the facility square dance club, that type of thing, meeting more faculty people one on one but relating and learning how to relate to other people of all ages.
Carlos Begay: What connections did your college experience provide you with? (Friend, business, professional)
Jenny Stroup: Lots of friends, always and to this day, sorority sisters, we still get together once a year. That’s kind of a winter thing that we do up here now since a lot of them come from here but others come from California and around. A very good support group and emotions, whether help with family, jobs, someone says hey I’ve heard such and such is opening and maybe you son would be interested, this type of thing. Just the general support became a very large extended family. I just think the educational background that I had provided me with a lot of tools in teaching.
Carlos Begay: Considering your total college experience, what difference did ASC/NAU make in your personal life?
Jenny Stroup: The enrichment in my life and the self confidence that I could do things and I think that was a lot of it. Feeling well prepare about facing whatever I was going into.
Carlos Begay: What about your college experience most made you feel good about yourself?
Jenny Stroup: I guess making the honoraries, that I could do this, I could work. I was one of those kids that in high school, I could do the work but I just never knew it was necessary. I do vividly remember when I was a sophomore in high school coming home and my mother was very thrilled that I made the honor roll. And I can just remember just looking at it thinking, oh well that wasn’t that hard but I didn’t know it was such a big deal. It just wasn’t, nobody really pounded it into us I guess that we should do this, try to do the best we could. So that and accomplishing that throughout college really helps. And the ultimation is having job offers when you first graduate and that’s always a nice feeling. There are things out there that I can do and people want me to do.
Carlos Begay: What were the pressing social issues of the day and how did that affect your life on campus?
Jenny Stroup: Flagstaff was removed from a lot of things. The hippy era was just starting but that was something we heard about, we didn’t experience to that degree every on this campus while I was here. You’d hear about riots in San Francisco and the peacenik removement, this type of thing, it just wasn’t a big issue with us here basically it was day to day living and getting along with everybody. I don’t know that we had any particular big social issues. The campus was very integrated, we had a nice representation of every ethnic makeup possible I think.
Carlos Begay: Is there anything that you would like to add beyond the questions that we covered?
Jenny Stroup: I just still dwell on the fact that it was a friendly campus. Even my husband knew more people here then he did at ASU, we went together for three years of college and he was up here a lot of weekends. A lot of activities that promoted getting to know people. I don’t think I would’ve had the opportunity to get to know people from India personally in any other way of life but, I mean I guess I would’ve maybe but here I got to know them in a living environment which was nice, this type of thing. From scattered all over the world basically they were here, that type of thing I think was one of the best experiences I had from college. The people I met and the background I got.

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Carlos Begay: What it your name?
Jenny Stroup: Virginia Stroup, but known in college as Jenny Martin
Carlos Begay: What degree did you receive, in what year, and from what department?
Jenny Stroup: College of Education, Bachelor of Science in secondary education, 1962
Carlos Begay: What role have you had in education following graduation? What positions have you held in education?
Jenny Stroup: I taught for a year in Tempe High District, and coach, physical education English in my major and minor, and my husband was in the Air Guard and we went to Georgia for a year while he went to pilot training and I substituted taught there which was quite an eye opener. Going from Arizona to Georgia and at that time, and it was deep south, came back and taught another year at Tempe High. And then my husband went with the air line and we started moving around the country and we had our family. So I didn’t teach after that. I’ve used my education as a great deal as a volunteer. And I’ve been a volunteer for over 35 years with the Scottsdale boys and girls club. And I don’t directly work with the kids too often, I work with the auxiliary and we are a support group. We’re run a Thrift shop as a fundraising group armed for the programming for the kids. I used it as a girl scout leader, I used it as a little league mom, and a lot of things that my educational background really did help me do more for my family I think all the way through.
Carlos Begay: How would you describe the student population in terms of age, gender, race, economic status?
Jenny Stroup: We had a lot of returning veterans coming in at that point. It was an interesting time, I don’t know why they came to flagstaff, I guess they wanted something different too. I do remember that in my freshman class it was a small school. I came to NAU, Arizona State College at that time. Specifically to go to a small school and to be in a change of climate. My freshman class was almost as large as the student body had been the year before which was around four hundred and something students. So by the time I graduated, four years later it was the student body was around four thousand. So it grew rapidly and yet it was very diversified. We had foreign students, we had students from all over the country. I remember one of the student crying the day Hawaii became a state. She was from Hawaii and she wanted Hawaii to stay special, not be just another state. But as far as gender I think it was pretty evenly divided, and the ages, we had quite a few married students and again I think that was probably an aftermath of the veterans coming in, they were a little older.
Carlos Begay: Why did you choose to go to ASC/NAU? How did ASC/NAU influence your decision to go into education?
Jenny Stroup: I guess as I said earlier, I wanted to go to a smaller school. I went to west Phoenix High School in Phoenix. My graduating class was almost seven hundred students. In my other there were four thousand students in the student body so just the school in itself was big, bigger then when I started here. Education had been something that I guess I’d been instilled with all my life. As a child I wanted to be a…I can remember…in the eighth grade you’d take all these aptitude tests and that I remember, a professor, a teacher who was eight grade home room and English teacher, she said you know, its too bad that you are a girl because engineering would be the choice the field that you should really go into but you can be a teacher. That’s okay and that was kind of an attitude that predominant my age group gals could be teachers, nurses, or secretaries. And I never thought about it any differently and up to this day I love mechanical things and all that but I love teaching. And it’s just that I worked my way through college as a summer camp counselor and even in High School I worked at a child care nursery and the YWCA and things like this. I liked being with young people and just been always focused that direction I guess.
Carlos Begay: How did you pay for college and did you work during the time that you were a student?
Jenny Stroup: Yes, I worked, yes. I had scholarships, my parents helped me a great deal. My last year, I could not work while I was student teaching so I had one of the government educational loans that every year you taught you pay less back type program, I did that. I had a couple jobs off campus, holiday jobs and I worked the snowbowl every winter just because I loved skiing and also one of my sorority sisters grandmother own it so it was nice to be able to work within an environment of friends. Had a few scholarships that helped along the way, learned later that there were a lot more that I could apply for but we weren’t really sophisticated during that time.
Carlos Begay: What was your experience with housing during this time? Were you in a dormitory or off campus? What was dorm life like?
Jenny Stroup: I lived in the dorm the whole time. My first year of course was in what we called north quad north hall, it was strictly a freshman woman’s dorm, and then I lived there first semester as a sophomore as a counselor, as a spur. I would counsel the freshmen and then my roommate left so I moved over to the sorority dorm and lived in the sorority dorms. We didn’t have separate building, it was just floors within the women dorms for the next three years.
Carlos Begay: What campus traditions were memorable to you during this time?
Jenny Stroup: I guess homecoming was always a big thing for us. Everybody worked so hard, everybody on campus and in town was involved in the homecoming parade and all the activities leading up to it. The whole week of activity, the chain gang was leading it, it was a lot of good memories that way. A lot of memories of just, I guess, activities and fun and of course being in a sorority, that’s where I lived and had a closer relationship with those gals. The fun thing we did and the friendliness, I think probably as a tradition, NAU was just known as a friendly campus. Whether it was a professor or a counselor or the college nurse, whatever it might be. You knew everybody and everybody was very very friendly, that way.
Carlos Begay: What Extra Curricular activities did you take part in (sports, drama, government, newspaper, etc) and what effect did they have on your college experience?
Jenny Stroup: WAA, woman’s athletic association which was woman’s intramural program basically. We didn’t have any woman’s varsity sports or organized sports that way at all. I did that as my interest and then all my sorority activities I was supervised and student government, as a senator for a couple of years and treasure of the woman’s associated students organization. Involved in all of it and mostly the sports came through my major and its been working that way.
Carlos Begay: What teachers, classes, or educational experiences did you have that were the most memorable?
Jenny Stroup: I had a lot of good ones. Probably one of the things that I had my counselor and advisor in the physical education department was Helen Oswald, Dr. Oswald who later became head of the physical education department of the university, or athletic director I guess it was titled in. Very open, you could discuss anything and I can remember taking graduate level classes my senior year from Dr. Cheska who was head of the woman’s physical education program at that time. And being able to discuss things, it was very very open and having a graduate class with 10 or 12 students in it made it a very interesting experience and having student that were married students, returning to the workforce students, plus undergraduates like myself. And the first day you think, here I am, the undergraduate, I don’t stand a chance with these grad students and she never let that happen. Our opinion was a valuable as anyone’s else and I thought that was all the way through school, the fact that I could always question or get extra help or talk with my professors. I was never making an appointment to see a student assistant. It was always directly with a professor.
Carlos Begay: What was your clearest and most memorable experience of your college years?
Jenny Stroup: It’s really tough to say, I probably have to say that it was being tapped for, we called it honor board at the time now it went national mortar board, that’s a very clear memory to me, a very emotional time, very exciting time to see your efforts of three years pay off. I had a lot of good very memorable experiences and they all revolved around friends, people.
Carlos Begay: Considering your total college experience, what difference did ASC/NAU make in your professional life?
Jenny Stroup: I think we were more people oriented. When I went to teach, of course at Tempe High, we had so many students and there were new teachers there and they were out of ASU, which was huge. And they all commented about so many of the things and background that I had experienced that they didn’t have. They certainly had the academic part but the one on one type relationship with professors or student teaching in a smaller situation, the extra curricular things that we did through our classes such as square dancing with the facility square dance club, that type of thing, meeting more faculty people one on one but relating and learning how to relate to other people of all ages.
Carlos Begay: What connections did your college experience provide you with? (Friend, business, professional)
Jenny Stroup: Lots of friends, always and to this day, sorority sisters, we still get together once a year. That’s kind of a winter thing that we do up here now since a lot of them come from here but others come from California and around. A very good support group and emotions, whether help with family, jobs, someone says hey I’ve heard such and such is opening and maybe you son would be interested, this type of thing. Just the general support became a very large extended family. I just think the educational background that I had provided me with a lot of tools in teaching.
Carlos Begay: Considering your total college experience, what difference did ASC/NAU make in your personal life?
Jenny Stroup: The enrichment in my life and the self confidence that I could do things and I think that was a lot of it. Feeling well prepare about facing whatever I was going into.
Carlos Begay: What about your college experience most made you feel good about yourself?
Jenny Stroup: I guess making the honoraries, that I could do this, I could work. I was one of those kids that in high school, I could do the work but I just never knew it was necessary. I do vividly remember when I was a sophomore in high school coming home and my mother was very thrilled that I made the honor roll. And I can just remember just looking at it thinking, oh well that wasn’t that hard but I didn’t know it was such a big deal. It just wasn’t, nobody really pounded it into us I guess that we should do this, try to do the best we could. So that and accomplishing that throughout college really helps. And the ultimation is having job offers when you first graduate and that’s always a nice feeling. There are things out there that I can do and people want me to do.
Carlos Begay: What were the pressing social issues of the day and how did that affect your life on campus?
Jenny Stroup: Flagstaff was removed from a lot of things. The hippy era was just starting but that was something we heard about, we didn’t experience to that degree every on this campus while I was here. You’d hear about riots in San Francisco and the peacenik removement, this type of thing, it just wasn’t a big issue with us here basically it was day to day living and getting along with everybody. I don’t know that we had any particular big social issues. The campus was very integrated, we had a nice representation of every ethnic makeup possible I think.
Carlos Begay: Is there anything that you would like to add beyond the questions that we covered?
Jenny Stroup: I just still dwell on the fact that it was a friendly campus. Even my husband knew more people here then he did at ASU, we went together for three years of college and he was up here a lot of weekends. A lot of activities that promoted getting to know people. I don’t think I would’ve had the opportunity to get to know people from India personally in any other way of life but, I mean I guess I would’ve maybe but here I got to know them in a living environment which was nice, this type of thing. From scattered all over the world basically they were here, that type of thing I think was one of the best experiences I had from college. The people I met and the background I got.